I’ve been listening to the GreatSchoolsMA advocates
for some rationale on why dark money is a good thing (more on this in an
upcoming post) and one consistent response is to change the subject to union spending.
It’s true the unions are spending millions against Question 2. But in the battle
of billionaire’s dark money versus union money, not all money is created equal.

The difference here is pretty basic. Although some of the
pro-2 money is transparent (Bloomberg, Waltons, several other hedge funders and
a few small dollar contributors) most of it is untraceable dark money, contributed in
staggering amounts by a handful of superrich individuals – perhaps fewer than
ten of them (See Your
Dark Money Reader). The millions in union money comes in
small amounts from the dues of thousands of members. We don’t know the
identities of those thousands either, but then it really doesn’t matter. As
Massachusetts Common Cause wrote in its report Shining a Light: Success
of the Massachusetts Disclosure Law, “Unions are funded by
dues and small contributions from their members, making the identity of each
donor less relevant. When each donor is small, the public interest in knowing
who they are is reduced. Unions are also subject to other strict reporting
requirements by the Department of Labor, as well as have rules around how their
money can be raised and spent.”

Unions assert that their policy positions are shaped by
their members, pointing to a governance structure built on representatives
elected by the rank and file. Union finances, including political spending, are
governed by extensive federal regulation, requiring regular and highly detailed
reporting, with significant penalties for misreporting. . . .

In contrast the decision-making structure and finances of pro-privatizer
organizations and foundations are opaque. Often, all that can be learned are
the names of the members of their boards of directors. Through these listings,
it can be discerned that these boards are primarily composed of contributors
who have entered the education policy arena with a market driven agenda.

The Common Cause New York report
then went into some detail to break down how large the privatizer individuals’
contributions were, compared to the many thousands of small dollar
contributions by teachers. One of the most important dark money organizations
in New York, as it is here, is the dark money Families for Excellent Schools.

The biggest giver to Great Schools Massachusetts is Families
for Excellent Schools Advocacy, the New York based dark money front. No one really
knows who finances FESA’s Massachusetts interests though you can find some
reasonable inferences at Shining
a Light on Families for Excellent Schools.

The Save Our Public Schools campaign is mostly funded
by unions that aggregate the contributions of thousands of teachers. But how
many contributors to Great Schools Massachusetts identify as teachers? If you
go through the contributors at the Office of Campaign and Political Finance
website you’ll see two individuals identified as retired teachers and one
college professor, total contributions: sixty-five dollars ($65.00). That sum
is a bit less than FESA’s infusion of six million seven hundred and fifty
thousand dollars ($6,750,000.00) in dark money that keeps Great Schools
Massachusetts alive.

Not all money is created equal.

Louis D. Brandeis: "We must make our choice. We may have
democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we
can't have both."

[Full disclosure: as an educator in the UMass system, I am a union
member.I write about dark money, not charter schools. I've never
written about charter schools, nor taken a position on them. I have taken a
position against plutocracy and in favor of democracy, and thus against dark
money.]